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headsman. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
headsman, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
headsman in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
headsman you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
From Middle English heddysman, equivalent to head + -s- + -man. Cognate with Scots hedisman, heidisman (“head man; chief; commander”). Compare also Danish høvedsmand (“captain”), Swedish hövitsman (“captain”), Icelandic höfuðsmaður (“captain”), German Hauptmann (“captain”).
Noun
headsman (plural headsmen)
- (obsolete or Scotland) A chief person; a head man
- An executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation.
1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes , book I, London: Val Simmes for Edward Blount , →OCLC:And of those base-minded jesters or buffons, some have beene seene, that even at the point of death would never leave their jesting and scoffing. He whom the heads-man threw off from the Gallowes cried out, ‘Row the Gally,’ which was his ordinarie by-word.
1885, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu, London: Chappel & Co., , →OCLC:And made him Headsman, for we said, / "Who's next to be decapited / Cannot cut off another's head / Until he's cut his own off […]"
- (mining, historical) A labourer in a colliery who transports the coal from the workings to the horseway, and who is oftentimes assisted by a younger worker called a foal.
- (nautical) One in command of a whaling vessel.
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